Deadbeat Dads Are Not Always Deadbeats – Why Are they Killing Themselves?

As many as 50 men a day, in fact, take their own lives after divorce. Each and every day. Nearly 18,000 a year! Over half, if ALL suicides are by divorced men.

It isn’t because they lost the coffee maker in the divorce.

Even more, are left so incapacitated by the unjust removal of their children the can hardly function as human beings. Countless are diagnosed with PTSD and many veterans I have spoken with personally tell me there is absolutely no comparison in the trauma they experience through having their children removed from their lives and reduced to a visitor and the combat tours they experienced overseas. It’s a tragedy that so many come back from overseas already dealing with PTSD only to come home to having lost their children through a separation or divorce.

These are the struggles of many so-called deadbeats and if they are unable to make their child support payments on time they are then additionally villainized and even jailed for it.

So please excuse me if my empathy for the struggling parent who didn’t get their child support check on time does not evoke the same level of empathy from me as the struggles of the supposed Evil Deadbeat that is most likely unable to pay it due to much deeper struggles.

The Canadian Mental Health Association reports men are likely to kill themselves at a rate 3-4 times higher than females. Marital breakdown is often a factor.

“Divorce is a tipping point for a lot of guys,” says Prof. John Oliffe, a University of B.C. psychology researcher who is part of a team fighting male depression and suicide. “Divorce is a classic factor in suicide. These men become socially isolated. There are so many examples of good men’s lives ending prematurely.”

A non-custodial parent, by definition, has a very limited impact on the life of a child. Usual visitation arrangements being something like one evening a week and alternating weekends means that the father is no longer a parent per se, but rather a visitor. He doesn’t take part in routine activities of his child, the law removes his parental authority if he doesn’t fight for his right to parent his children and forces him into a position of an entertainer rather than a parent – which is unfulfilling both for the father and the child.

In his latest book, Lonely at the Top, Joiner asks, “which cause of death stands out as affecting men far more than women? Given their privileged financial and society status, perhaps it has something to do with the dark side of wealth and power such as the cardiac or stroke-related consequences of influential but stressful jobs, or a taste for expensive but unhealthy foods?”

“No,” he says, “It’s suicide.” Approximately 30,000 people commit suicide each year in the U.S. and 80% were men. Overall, males kill themselves at rates that are 4 times higher than females. But in certain age groups men are even more vulnerable. The suicide rate for those ages 20-24 is 5.4 times higher for males than for females of the same age.

In the older age groups suicide is even more a “male problem.” After retirement, the suicide rate skyrockets for men, but not for women. Between the ages of 65-74 the rate is 6.3 times higher for males. Between the ages of 75-84, the suicide rate is 7 times higher. And for those over 85, it is nearly 18 times higher for men than it is for women.

Another interesting finding is that while divorce and separation are linked to suicide risk in both sexes, divorced/separated men seem particularly vulnerable to suicidal “ideation” (thoughts and planning) and to suicide itself. This may make sense since it’s been shown that men derive more mental and physical health benefits from marriage than do women (although it’s good for both sexes) – so the breakdown of a marriage could lead to more detrimental outcomes for men. That said, there’s still a lot of pressure on men to fill out the masculine husband role, whatever socioeconomic class one is in, and the reality is that today this classic role may be somewhat unrealistic. “There is a large and unbridgeable gap between the culturally authorized idea of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and the reality of everyday survival for men in crisis,” write the authors. One way of taking back one’s own masculinity, they suggest, is to take one’s own life.

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I’ve been writing about the depression that occurs for many men (myself included) after divorce. Let’s talk about it. Let’s heal from it. And let’s help the men coming after us to have a better chance at staying relevant and present in their children’s lives.